France will 'ban all petrol and diesel vehicles by 2040'

France plans to ban all petrol and diesel vehicles by 2040, the country’s new environment minister has announced.

Nicolas Hulot made the announcement as he unveiled a series of measures as part of newly elected President Emmanuel Macron’s plan to make the country carbon neutral by 2050.

Mr Hulot said he recognised the target would put pressure on France’s car manufacturers, but he said they currently had projects which “can fulfil that promise”.

As part of the plan, poorer households will receive a premium so they can swap their polluting vehicles for clean alternatives.

The announcement comes after Volvo said on Wednesday it planned to built only electric and hybrid vehicles from 2019.

Speaking at a press conference, Mr Hulot told reporters France would stop using coal to produce electricity by 2022 and that up to €4bn of investments will help to boost energy efficiency.

The announcements are part of a five-year-plan to encourage clean energy and fulfil the country’s commitments under the Paris Agreement.

Mr Hulot said the government wanted to maintain the country’s “leadership” in climate policy.

“We want to demonstrate that fighting against climate change can lead to an improvement of French people’s daily lives,” he said.

France is not the only country which aims to ban combustion-powered cars. The Netherlands and Norway previously said they wanted to get rid of petrol and diesel vehicles by 2025 and Germany and India announced similar plans ahead of 2030.

295 thoughts on “France will 'ban all petrol and diesel vehicles by 2040'”

Love to see the queues at the border crossings of all those petrol & diesel vehicles from other countries doing business or just transiting France and drivers being told their vehicles are banned in open borders EU France.
LOL
Macron, vous etes un imbecile.

The direct quote from Mr. Hulot is that “We are announcing an end to the sale of petrol and diesel cars by 2040.” So the borders could remain open, but French people of any means will just buy their cars from a neighboring country, or hold on to the old ones as long as possible.

Yes les imbeciles all. Here in the socialist non republic of Scotland we have sturgeon in charge. She followed on from a salmon. In Europe there is a Mackerel running the funny farm – macron/merkel.
Is there something fishy going on?

Houlot is a film maker. He is well known and well respected for the fine nature films that he made. But that does NOT mean that he knows anything about the science of climate and has not scientific training.

“unveils five-year-plan”
Five year plan?
Let me see 2017 + 5 = 2022.
“ban all petrol and diesel vehicles by 2040”
Still quite a way til 2040.
I might give this project some hope if no tax payer subsidies were involved.
Do these people ever study relevant things in history in order to see how much subsidy was paid for the move from horse transport to motorized transport?
Cheers
Rogerhttp://www.rogerfromnewzealand.wordpress.com

France, like Japan, got badly shortchanged in the great international hydrocarbon lottery. They don’t have all that much stuff to burn and have to buy most of their hydrocarbons from elsewhere. So programs to encourage the use of alternatives to hydrocarbons there make sense. e.g. France generates more power per capita from nuclear than any other country. That said, this looks to be another poorly thought out environmentalist scheme to push decades beyond what technology can or will be able to support.
But maybe it makes sense if you think in French.

“As part of the plan, poorer households will receive a premium so they can swap their polluting vehicles for clean alternatives.”
So, the French are going to initiate their own ‘Cash for Clunkers’ program.

France may currently be one of the world’s leaders in nuclear energy production, but it was also announced that there are plans to draw down nuclear’s share of electricity generation from 75 to 50 percent by 2025—giving itself a 10-year time frame equivalent to the complete shutdown now ongoing in Germany. Additionally, Diesel and gasoline vehicles represented about 95.2 percent of French new car fleets in the first half of this year, while electric vehicles hold 1.2 percent of the market. Hybrid cars make up about 3.5 percent. Car sales are driven by market pressures and not by governments edicts or aspirations so the French pronouncements are nothing more than pie is the sky politics.

No plants.
No grape vine.
No French wine.
No people – obviously no viticulteur.
Logically, an utter disaster.
Auto – with a glass of French red wine to hand. Naturally.
But reassured that this is so far down the line that – probably – I will not be around to see it.
Even the ban on sales of new Internal Combustion-powered cars is nearly a quarter of a century away.

They’ve already had a good try, with some city sidewalks being turned into velodromes. Considering that some of the bikes are now electric and therefore effectively motorcycles, that means the sidewalk is now effectively just another road lane for speeding vehicles.
Nothing very green about that. More in the Mad Max category of dystopias.

I’ve owned Diesels for about 35 years now, and experimented broadly with odd fuels. For flexibility, the old Bosche injectors Mercedes with precombustion chamber can’t be beat. I currently drive a 1980… About 1986 is the last of them.
It runs FINE on kerosene and jet fuel. Loves biodiesel, that you can make yourself if needed. I’ve run a 20% gasoline / 80% Diesel mix in it (as per the manuel for winter fuel).
To make DIY biodiesel: mix 19% alcohol (methamol preferred) with 80% animal fat or plant oil and 1% lye as a catalyst. Room temp or warmer. Mix, then let it settle overnight. It separates into a glycerine and biodiesel layers, lye on the bottom. Siphon to separate, wash with counterflow water, then dry it (heat, or vacuum, or absobents, or whatever).
I’m happy to run my Diesel, long after the last “gas station” closes…
BTW, straight vegetable oil craps up the engine with soot and varnish as it is too thick for the injectors and the glycerine content makes it burn poorly. It can be run in an emergency, but cut it with some kerosene or 10% gasoline. Long term use requires kits to heat the fuel (and the tank in winter or it freezes into a solid and clogs the filters with solid fats & oils)
Realize that all the more “modern” computerized Diesels will fail on funny fuels other than biodiesel. Their sensors will detect out of spec fuel and shut down. If it takes blue goo, you are tied to the diesel pump… though Jet-A ought to work too (it is basically very clean low volatiles #1 Diesel).
As long as there are jets, kerosene lamps & heaters, and grocery stores, I’ve got fuel… I will never buy a new car again.

It is far from obvious that it will cost any money. By 2040 a good assumption would probably be that no
cars currently on the road in France will still be being used. Furthermore France could easily generate more electricity using nuclear power stations and while those are expensive it would be offset by reductions in imports of fossil fuels. Finally France is large enough that economy of scales would mean that the price of electric cars will come down and should be comparable to conventional cars. So it is possible that this move will save money for France.

Geronimo;“By 2040 a good assumption would probably be that no cars currently on the road in France will still be being used.”
I believe you underestimate the market. The newest car I own, I Chevy K3500 dual wheel, crew cab Duramax diesel, will be twelve years old this year and I have every reason to believe it will outlive me.
Cars are accounted for as “durable goods” for a reason; there are Deux Chevaux on the roads of France today that are 50 years old.
Cars have sentimental value to their owners, and not all of them focus on high value “collectibles”. The Renault Dauphin is a great example. It was the VW of France and it’s still a highly sought after car.
No, the French plan won’t work without irritating a very vocal contingent of car enthusiasts. It’s just thuggery writ large.

Geronimo, the cost of importing oil for a car is paid by the car’s owner. While the money to build a nuclear plant is paid by the utility company or government. Two different sources. Also, the majority of the cost of a nuclear plant that will run for 40+ years is paid in the 5 or 10 years of its construction, while the oil to run a car for 40 years is paid over those 40 years.
So you can’t just say the cost of a nuclear plant will be offset by reductions in imports of fossil fuels, the economics aren’t that simple.
And don’t forget that switching to all electric cars will also require building a whole new infrastructure of charging stations while dealing with the clean-up of all the old gasoline storage tanks.
Oh and then there are all the other internal combustion engines. Like lawn mowers and leaf blowers and most importantly backup generators used at hospitals and police stations. So they won’t be able to get rid of the fossil fuel infrastructure. They will have to maintain two separate infrastructures.

It’s not just a case of bankrupting France – it’ll put them back in the dark ages and there’s no way it will happen. As I pointed out on another thread, France has ~35 million passenger cars & currently consumes ~half a billion bbls of oil per annum. About 80% of that probably goes to produce fuel – primarily gasoline & diesel – so about 400 million bbls. To replace that fuel on an equivalent energy basis, you need ~680 TWh of electricity. France’s current electricity production, which is ~70% nuclear, is ~550TWh of which it exports about 10% to other EU countries. So they need to at least double their electricity supply to replace their existing vehicles with electric cars. This assumes equivalent efficiencies which is pessimistic of course but also assumes no transmission losses, no population growth, no growth in industrial consumption, etc. etc. Since they are also committed to reducing their nuclear power to 50%, presumably with an increasing and (increasingly) unreliable wind energy portfolio, this will be a really neat trick to pull off!!! These politicians and their “green” acolytes have no concept of energy supply and how difficult it is to replace hydrocarbon fuels anytime soon. We can sit back now and watch France undertake this experiment and see how long it will take for reality to bite.

Geronimo: My oldest car, and the one I drive the most often, is twenty years old, and I have no plans to get rid of it. I routinely get offers for it, and I suspect a Honda Prelude will become even more popular when it hits antique status in five more years. It’s not the oldest car on my street, much less this area. In 23 years there will still be a lot of traditional cars on the roads.

Two major comments:
1. Who is going to pay for and build the massive infrastructure needed to replace all those gas and diesel stations through out the country, It’s not Free, the existing one was provided by the free market system so you can fuel up almost anywhere even in rural areas. This will not be cheap.
2. In the USA the oil companies are the largest contributor to the US Treasury, Plus there are excessive gas taxes that pay for public transportation like Trains, what are the plans to replace the huge tax resource. Taxes have to go up somewhere else. Many liberals ignore that taxes on petroleum products are currently propping up many economies. Taxes will have to increase dramatically to replace the funds currently paid by oil. They better start explaining HOW.

Catcracking: What excessive gasoline taxes? USA’s federal motor vehicle fuel tax is 18.4 cents per gallon of gasoline, 24.4 cents per gallon of diesel, unchanged since 1993. It seems that state and federal combined increased less than the CPI did since 1993 last Federal increase in most states, although it could be a close call in Pennsylvania.

Macron has made the classic error of appointing someone “parti pris” to run a sensitive givernment office. The last person you want running a [whatever] department is a [whatever] activist or fanatic.
It doesn’t just apply to the environment though eco-activists do tend to be a bit more obsessive than most! This will end in tears because Hulot will be unable to allow reality to interfere with belief.

It’s always amazing to me how people with no concept of how economics works, continuously chant various economic terms like they were some kind of incantation.
Economies of scale matter the most as you are coming up from very small numbers. By the time you get to a few hundred thousands of cars a year, most of the “economies of scale” have already been achieved.
Going from 100K to a million will mean the cars can be made cheaper, but not by much.

Donald, you conveniently ignored the US State tax on motor vehicle fuel, which is as high as 50 cents per gallon in some states. As I recall the original federal tax was for building the Interstate highways which are essentially complete, meanwhile NJ just added 23 cents/gallon to the gas tax which is not shown in the table below:https://taxfoundation.org/state-gasoline-tax-rates-2016/
I note, living in NJ there is an abundance of new curb and sidewalk projects this summer, but no work on the roads with the additional 23 cents, except on the Parkway, which a few years ago doubled the tolls, originally to build another mass transit tunnel to New York. NJ has the highest cost per mile for road construction due to total control by Unions, little competition.
Why not look at the REVENUE from gas tax since the last increase in the 90’s , I suspect the revenue has gone up considerably. We don’t look at increasing the income tax rates because of inflation because the revenue still goes up. The problem is the gasoline tax is used for purposes other than highways and now electric cars are not paying their fair share.
Of course the gas tax in Europe is much higher because the money is spent elsewhere. My point was how are they going to replace the huge treasury collections currently enjoyed with fossil fuels, you know they are not going to reduce spending. Venezuela here we come.

So, one flavor ‘allows’ a person to own capital, as long as they toe the party line and are likely of the party leadership. The other advocates common ownership of capital, which is controlled by the party leadership.. What’s the practical difference when it’ll be the ruling class that controls the capital? They’re just different flavors of Socialism.

In Europe, only the leaders’ lives have value. They are allowed protection. The concept of self-protection for the little people is frowned on heavily. They are not only denied the right to bear arms, but they are sued by the State if they attempt to defend themselves from attackers. Their only option is to run – if they can. Otherwise, they are expected to take the beating or whatever else comes their way. Only the police are allowed to fight back, as well as security agents of the ruling class.
European citizens are, as ever, chattel, cannon fodder – resources of the state.
I prefer the American way. Except in New York, Illinois, and California, people are equals of the political class, and have the right to protect themselves.
The citizens of the big cities in those afore-mentioned states know their intrinsic value – which explains why they feel any criminal should have more rights than they do. Pity that they try to project that worthlessness on people who live outside those large, corrupt cities, by disarming them, too.

In Chicago the government is everywhere. And its a nasty, expensive, and inefficient dictatorial type of government. All we subjects are to the Chicago and Cook County governments is peons to be milked of tax money.
At one point in my life I lived for thirteen months downstate in a small town (Galesburg). Downstate I almost never saw or interacted with the government and most people rarely even discussed the government. The few time I had to interact with the government downstate (to renew my driver’s license, buy a city vehicle registration sticker) the government officials I dealt with were polite, efficient, and a pleasure to deal with.) Despite small police departments, there was so little crime I unintentionally got in the habit of leaving my car unlocked.
In liberal cities you are a subject. In conservative cities you are a citizen.

Robertvd ,
Yes, notice while the elite Obama and his friends, who want to ban fossil fuels, lives the life with the largest carbon footprints in the world with vacations on huge private yachts, private planes and flying all around the world trying to undermine the USA and Trump with his concept of one world UN government ignoring our Constitution.
Total Hypocrites fossil fuels for me, none for you I am elite and exempt from the measures I will impose on you.

I actually think that the auto industry is dying, and self-driving cars and electric motors will kill it.
First of all, self-driving cars will eliminate much of the need for ownership of vehicles. Sure, it’s nice to have your own car, but for the 95% case, having access to to a vehicle that comes and gets you and drops you off where you want to be would be all that is required, if it is cheap enough, why would you want your own car.
In addition, you could get cars that service a particular purpose, ie. you are picking up something large, so send me a big car …
Now electric cars are another very large nail in the coffin of the industry. Right now we have very successful companies like Daimler-Benz and BMW and other high end manufacturers building incredibly complex engines that provide increased performance, these are matched with very balanced chassis and steering systems and you pay a premium for them – you also pay for the delicious sounds of those motors. With electric motors, they all pretty much get ~90% efficiency, the weight distribution of batteries and the lighter motors allows builders to get a pretty good handling vehicle without a very complex design due to the very low centre of mass of the vehicle. And you get no sound, much of the “theatre” of a sports car is gone.
What is the point of differentiation? Why would you want to pay many factors more for one vehicle versus another? Sure there is some minor design and look premium, and there will always be people wanting to show off with an expensive marquee, but what tangible improvement do they get? When you buy a Porsche, or a high end Merc, or a Ferrari, it’s more than just looks, you get an amazing piece of technology that is a great experience to drive and that greatly outperforms a normal car. When electric motors become the norm, every manufacturer could add ludicrous mode without it being a major design change to their base vehicle.

“…why would you want your own car.”
Did you ever find a public restroom to be so disgusting that you would not use it? Public transportation options in many cases is similarly disgusting. The Metro in Paris is an example of how public property is not treated with respect, with people regularly urinating and worse in its stairways, hallways and corridors.

R.S.
The public transit in France may be disgusting, but in more primitive cultures like, oh say Thailand or Columbia, their metros are immaculate, respected and efficient. It isn’t a human problem, it’s a French problem.

I don’t know about public transit in Thailand or Colombia, but I did once have to clean a toilet in India before anyone could use it. Even after washing with water AND waterless hand cleaner, my hands still didn’t feel clean. It’s not just a French problem.

The difference is that this “public transport” requires your ID and credit card details. You wreck it, you pay for it. The next passenger can complain and the car goes out of service and you pay for its cleaning.

It has never been about climate. It has always been about total dictatorial control. Big Brother where they send you to the gas chambers when you become obsolete. But probably the EU will be a muslim state by 2040.

Exactly!
I ask, who is responsible for electing these socialist governments that are destroying the western world? It’s a fair question considering the number of people around the world who deny having anything to do with it.
Like France, we in Australia are “blessed” with wall to wall socialist politicians in our parliament. Each “alternative party” offering a different path to that very same financial death as Macron or Merkel. Turnbul, our “conservative socialist” has again pledged his allegiances to the socialist initiated Paris fraud. As would our opposition alternative.
America literally dodged a bullet by electing Trump…….for now. In eight years he could probably kill the “beast”, four years will not be enough.
Macron, who labels himself with the new more palateable socialist buzz word, “centralist” rather than “conservate socialist”. Is simply a deception to give people an alternative they crave for in France. His history shows he is not that “alternative”. Le Pen was that alternative but was not by accident, out voted by the four controlling socialist partys that banded together as one. Australia has Turnbul. Who like Macron pretends himself, to be not a socialist but that pleasant alternative who has hijacked the governing conservative party and destroyed it from within. He by giving you softer policy versions of the same agenda but still having the same end as those lunatic socialists.
Our “alternative” governments stated policy is to reduce our CO/2 emmissions by 50% by the year 2030! To do that we would probably have to ban fossil fueled vehicles as well.
History shows, socialism fails at every turn when the money runs out. Or somebody having the balls to slamming the till shut on their fat fingers! The Paris fraud is but another socialist scheme to prolong the use of other people’s money to support their stated agenda 21. Trump blowing a damned big hole in “their” finances by jamming their fingers in the American till and don’t they know it!
History also shows how slow the worlds reaction is to these country wrecking terrorists. It also shows that countrys thrive after ridding themselves of the scourge of socialism.

Leigh, the millennials have voted in these fools … well one day the millennials are going to be forced to confront their follies when their children are dying before them as they can’t afford to live … and they would have long taxed out of existence any individuals or industries that paid the taxes for their nouvo-socialist lifestyles. Eventually, somebody has to pay the piper and it will be them.

“Speaking at a press conference, Mr Hulot told reporters France would stop using coal to produce electricity by 2022”
Naturally, though both Denmark, and South Australia have the highest percentage of “renewable” energy in the world, this has nothing to do with them also being number one and two for Global High Cost Electricity. It’s just really bad luck that there is no country anywhere in the world which has both wind and solar and cheap electricity.- (h/t Jo Nova).http://joannenova.com.au/2017/06/sa-will-take-top-prize-for-most-expensive-electricity-from-denmark-on-july-1/
It seems like forcing people into poverty is a national pursuit in some countries. Why would any sane government follow these lunatic policies?

At a news conference last week in Brussels, Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of U.N.’s Framework Convention on Climate Change, admitted that the goal of environmental activists is not to save the world from ecological calamity but to destroy capitalism.
“This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time, to change the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the Industrial Revolution,” she said.
Referring to a new international treaty environmentalists hope will be adopted at the Paris climate change conference later this year, she added: “This is probably the most difficult task we have ever given ourselves, which is to intentionally transform the economic development model for the first time in human history.”http://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/climate-change-scare-tool-to-destroy-capitalism/

Ms. Merkel, however, sounded a somewhat bleaker note. “The whole discussion about climate was very difficult, not to say unsatisfactory,” she said. “There’s a situation where it’s six, if you count the European Union, seven, against one.”
“This is not just any old agreement, but it is a central agreement for shaping globalization,” she said. “There are no signs of whether the U.S. will stay in the Paris accords or not.”https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/28/world/europe/angela-merkel-trump-alliances-g7-leaders.html?_r=0

And I wonder what they are going to use to transport all the goods around the country?Electric Trucks?I wonder how far an electric truck will go before needing recharging?In fact I don’t think there exisists any such vehicle.

cloa
From Australia and Jo Nova,
…Despite record sales of new cars, just 219 of the 1.2 million new vehicles sold in Australia in 2016 were electric, even that was a 90 percent drop from the previous year. Battery powered cars represented only 0.0018 percent of the total market.
People buy cars to get places. Governments “buy” cars to change the weather…
These Gooses do not mention anything in regard to the big and small economies involved. The Motor Car (Internal Combustion Engine) is a major industry worldwide.
France has 4 major makers and other smaller ones. The car provides transport, recreation and employment in so many areas and is a lucrative source of Taxation for Government. And the taxation from car maker profits and the staff taxes plus all the taxes from industries associated to the Motor Car. (Insurance, spare parts, mechanics , garages. etc). Even a smaller nation like Australia has a 30 cent US equivalent Tax Fuel Levy that collected about 10 billion or so back in 2014/2015 plus 10% GST. Plus 1.2 million new cars and all the GST at 10%. And all the other government charges.
French taxes would dwarf this but they also intend…delusionally…that they will subsidise the low income earner or welfare to transit over to The Electric Car.
Dead Set The Jetson cartoon has more futuristic credibility than the forecasts of the clowns. And Astro the Dog would be better at finance.

“What is the point of differentiation? Why would you want to pay many factors more for one vehicle versus another? “
There’s this movie you should watch, it’s called “Le Mans”. It might help with your understanding. Cars aren’t like refrigerators or washing machines for most folks, it really does take a person of the Romantic persuasion to understand. It’s difficult to describe.
Suffice to say that, even though you have difficulty understanding it, it nevertheless exists as “something beyond your ken”. That doesn’t invalidate it though.

Totally understand the connection with a car, but that’s a car whose engine screams. Noone gets that sensation from a Prius, and you’d get it even less with all electric where every car uses basically the same electric motors and the same batteries. Le Mans is a validation of what I am saying not a rebuttal.

Harry,
You live in a City. I don’t.
You don’t need to react to hundreds of different time/transportation variables in the day. I do.
You don’t mind using your ID & credit card in a manner that can cause problems for you. I do.
Most of the people I know are very productive and need to coordinate their transport to accommodate it. You don’t.
More than anyone I know, I don’t want to pay more for anything when I can get the equivalent for less; I don’t want to pay more and I don’t want others to force me to pay more so they can support or feel good about their unproductive lives. And you?

Electric motors are great. The problem is a tank – we don’t know how to pour electricity in a tank. Batteries are not yet good enough. We don’t yet have good enough fuel cells. You are putting a cart before the horse.

Yes. Macron has no need to declare bans 23 years ahead. What he needs to do is find enough lithium and rare earth metals to make storage of electricity and cheap efficient motors available.
The ban will come if electric cars become cheap enough. That means basically that the batteries become cheap. That requires that the material becomes cheap. They should also by manufactured and recycled with small amount of energy and labour. This is not very easy task for Macron. But he’s a politician, he sets the goal: ‘to the Moon’, and the audience in the MSM applauds.
The engineers and scientists that solve the riddle, are not applauded. They are blamed.

I live within ten miles of a federally subsidised train (south of Washington, DC) with a direct track close to a vacation destination we’ve been to three times (Orlando, Fl). Never has it been worth the price to take the train instead of driving the 850 miles and spending extra nights in hotels along the way. And that’s without considering any value in being able to stop at sights along the way.

My choices are 150 kilometres bicycling to the TGV station, 70 km to a hub station or 10 km to the closest station with about 10 hours idling in total. Might as well ride a horse 250 kilometres in total.

Harry, I totally agree that car ownership will plummet. Shared cars will have individual compartments with their own HVAC controls and adjustable privacy glass translucency. But auto miles traveled per capita will increase–not decrease–as the cost of auto transport drops. When you no longer have to waste an hour per day piloting a car but instead use that time to work why would you care if your commute time doubled? Instead of being at the office from 8 to 5 and tacking commute time on to either side of those hours, how about hopping in your shared car individual compartment at 8am, working for the hour it takes you to get to the office, and repeating on the return trip at 4pm?
So auto makers will have to deal with shared cars reducing their volume while at the same time increased miles traveled will increase their volume. My guess is that they’ll adjust just fine. They’ll just be selling to fleets instead of individuals.

CapitalistR
Tomorrow morning…Monday…in every major capital…country centre or small isolated village many millions of Australians will drive to work as usual.
The number of them taking a driverless car will be…
Zero.
Thank you for your futurist fantasy and enjoy your delusion.
And make sure you and your fellow fantasists pay for that delusion.

RobbertB:The horse is here to stay but the automobile is only a novelty – a fad.
— (1903) President of the Michigan Savings Bank advising Henry Ford’s lawyer, Horace Rackham, not to invest in the Ford Motor Company.
But feel free to maintain your role as automobile meat servo as long as possible. I suspect most of the rest of us will have better things to do.

Harry,
Are you paid to make these comments?
Electric cars already weigh over 10 % above comparable gasoline cars and cost a lot more.
Normally you can compare cost of many products with their weight considering that electric cars have much more expensive materials. I saw a Chevy Bolt recently in the showroom and it was listed yt 35,000 dollars whereas one can buy a new Cruze today for $15,000 with double the range, which I just bought for my grandson.
Don’t fool yourself into the nonsense that the price of an electric car will drop below a gasoline car with all the copper, heavy battery, and loads of sophisticated electronics. It is another NONSENSE lie from the left.
Besides a viable battery still remains to be developed except as a town car, and may never be developed for many decades if at all. After all batteries need to follow all the laws of Physics , ;Chemistry, and thermodynamics despite what Obama thought.
Also a minimum of 200 AMP house service is recommended which means only the elites can install a charging station, What do people who live in apartments do?

Totally understand the connection with a car, but that’s a car whose engine screams. Noone gets that sensation from a Prius, and you’d get it even less with all electric where every car uses basically the same electric motors and the same batteries. Le Mans is a validation of what I am saying not a rebuttal.

Why do you feel so threatened? I currently drive a Porsche and love the theatre of an internal combustion engine. I’m just pointing out that as manufacturers move to electric they will be removing much of their points of difference. The performance of a stock Toyota will be pretty much the same as a Merc or BMW.

“Ridiculing stupidity means one is feeling threatened?
Project much?”
My response was to his opening line “Are you paid to make these comments?”.
I’ve hardly ever commented here, though I read the blog often, the response was uncalled for and adds nothing to any debate.
I haven’t abused anyone, you are the one projecting. Do you think being offensive improves your “message”.

Just consider all the other potentially messy activities people do in cars besides sitting while going from point A to point B: eating, drinking, smoking, canoodling, etc. People won’t stop doing all that just because the vehicle isn’t theirs. Now just imagine ordering car service and getting a car with food trash left inside, or stinking of cigarette smoke, or seats wet with spilled drink or body fluids. I mean, sure, the company providing the car service would have a schedule for maintenance and upkeep, but that would probably mean a car will get cleaned once a day at best. It would be inefficient to send a car for cleaning after every call, especially if everyone relies on car service for travel.

@Harry, so the previous user gets billed for the cleaning, assuming the car has an in-cabin camera to let the company pinpoint which of the previous users that day was responsible for the mess. However, the mess would still be there, which means the person who gets that messy car will have to put up with the messーor wait for another, hopefully cleaner, car to be dispatched to him/her.

I think this might be true in cities, but people will still own cars because it will be economical to do so. People don’t need 600hp cars, but they are buying them.
Driving is an enjoyable experience that most people will not readily give up.
2040? God knows what the world will be like. Politicians certainly don’t!

It never ceases to amaze me how bad at constructing analogies many EV enthusiasts are.
Because people willing gave up horses, they will also willingly give up driving their own cars.
Lets not talk about how hard and expensive owning a horse is.
Also, it’s been my experience that most people who feel the need to put things like “capitalist” or “skeptic” in their tag, aren’t.

Harry asserts: “having access to to a vehicle that comes and gets you and drops you off where you want to be would be all that is required”
Might as well have it in your driveway, no?“why would you want your own car.”
It’s genetic. I am not responsible for my desires but there they are. I also have a “fidget spinner”. Things that spin fascinate me and an automobile has many spinning things.

MarkW, I’m hardly an EV fanatic. Almost certainly ten years from now the majority of cars will be powered by gasoline or CNG IC engines spinning electric generators powering electric motors driving the wheels.
But as far as AVs go, a $20K Honda Civic is damn close now, for highway driving, anyway. And the capitalist in me notes that boomers are yet five to ten years away from the oldest losing their drivers licenses for the typical reasons older people lose their licenses. But boomers won’t want to give up their spacious suburban homes in their relatively crime-free neighborhoods, nor will they want to rely on anyone else to take them everywhere they want to go. Boomers will demand AVs and boomers always get what they want.
AVs are unstoppable.

“First of all, self-driving cars will eliminate much of the need for ownership of vehicles. Sure, it’s nice to have your own car, but for the 95% case, having access to to a vehicle that comes and gets you and drops you off where you want to be would be all that is required, if it is cheap enough, why would you want your own car.”
Harry, do you perchance live in NYC and possess one of those maps where the majority of the USA is NYC and the rest of the nation is tiny in comparison? Do you have any idea how big this country is and of the distances between major cities?
In Arizona, I once drove for two hours without seeing another car or signs of human habitat. It was spooky and I started having visions of breaking down and no one ever coming along. No cell service, either.
A to of people do live in major cities but it is not 95% and it will be a long wait for someone to pick you up or drop you off.

Wishful thinking at it’s best.
Please tell me what the difference between self driving cars and taxis.
If it were possible for self driving cars to eliminate private ownership of cars, taxis and rental cars would already have done so.

Please tell me what the difference between self driving cars and taxis.
Cost. Half the cost of an Uber ride is probably the driver. AVs should dramatically reduce the cost of hired rides. And if you throw shared commutes into the mix, the cost of local transportation will drop dramatically for the majority of people. In twenty years’ time people will look back and be amazed that we wasted so much time piloting automobiles.

Harry,
Yes, electric motors are the perfect motive source for cars, which is why the first cars used them. However, they have one drawback: they require electricity and we don’t have a good portable source. All current battery technologies that can be mass produced fall short. They aren’t dense enough, take too long to charge, and most can’t be recharged near enough times before they stop taking a full charge. The current top battery chemistries that use lithium suffer sever capacity drop-off in cold conditions. How many people on the planet live in places where the temperature dips below freezing (0C) on a regular basis every winter? For them, practical EVs are still a dream.
As a 35+ year embedded software engineer, I can assure you that reliable, safe, self driving cars are a few decades off, at least. People won’t tolerate many deaths from self driving cars before they demand stringent testing (validation and verification, also known as V&V) from the manufactures before being certified to drive on the road. This will slow down the adoption of self driving cars since a lot of software will have to be rewritten using proper safety critical processes. And just to anticipate one rebuttal: yes, many people are killed by poor human drivers right now, but we have come to expect and even accept the fact that people will kill other people. We are just flawed humans after all. But we expect our machines to do much better, and in fact we expect them to never injure or kill us. And when they do, lawsuits are filed against the manufacturer for not making them safe enough, even if the human was using it improperly.
As for your utopian idea of community cars: just look up “tragedy of the commons” or ask any rental car company how well their cars hold up compared to cars privately owned. There are all types of accumulating damage that does not show up immediately, but are due to subtle and no so subtle forms of abuse that one would not typically inflict on their own property.

They would only be able to do that on a dedicated, controlled pathway anyway. “Artificial Intelligence” is an oxymoron. Computers cannot independently infer from incomplete data. They can only follow the algorithms in the software. When an “If” shows up that doesn’t have a “Then”, they’re in trouble.

And yet France has announced plans to close some of their nuclear plants prematurely.
I assume conversion kits to convert your gas powered vehicle will be a popular item. I wish I had one for my 57 Thunderbird. It actually isn’t that difficult, since present cars are in large measure electrically operated already. Mostly conversion consists of throwing drivetrain stuff away.

According to the article, France plans to reduce it’s energy from 75% nuclear to 50%.
From the article: “France has also pledged to reduce nuclear energy from 75 per cent to 50 per cent of the country’s energy mix by 2025. ”
Got to love the return of the 5 year plan… Isn’t that what the USSR did?

You can decrease the percentage of nuclear by cutting the number of nuclear plants, or building lots of other types of power. France is going to have to double it’s power generation (at least) if they switch to `100% EV.

By 2040, the amazing battery performance some of the advocates claim already exists will be workable and cost-effective. And all those third-world Muslims in France will be totally assimilated. One can dream?/sarc

If France eliminates all fossil fuel vehicles, that should drive a huge demand for electricity. Where will they get it?
Doesn’t Nuclear Supply ~75% of their grid? What are the Bad After dates of their Nuclear plants when alternate generation sources need to be found? All the Nuclear press I’ve seen describes future designs that are decades from coming to market, if ever.
But here’s a vital quote from The Independent news story that was omitted above:
“France has also pledged to reduce nuclear energy from 75% to 50% of the country’s energy mix by 2025.”
Aren’t these 2 goals potentially mutually exclusive?
Are the French such wasteful energy consumers that conservation can replace 1/3 of their Nuclear?
Have they found a new miracle source of electricity? Distributed Solar & Small Wind on all buildings? Offshore Wind? Tidal? Geothermal?
They pride themselves on being the country of logic. Should be fun to watch France over the next 8-13 years … succeed?

“Mr Hulot also said “citizen panels” will be established in order to debate practical ways in which France can meet its commitment under the Paris climate accord and reduce its emissions.”
That sounds benign… Not.

Are these citizen panels something like solar panels? Maybe they will harness all the waving arms and hot breath to generate power while the sun shines.
Don’t underestimate the inventiveness of the French. Peugeot came up with a way to hide spark plugs so deep inside the engine they can neither be seen nor retrieved using normal tools.
What happened to that compressed air car designed by a former F1 mechanic? I thought that had promise in that it actually worked.

They are planning to ban the sale not the use. With all this drivel from Macron it looks like Marine Le Pen’s plan to win power at the next election is coming along nicely. Five more years of elite lunacy and the people will be ready for change.
If it is a correct quote from the independent, then the article is wrong regarding Volvo. They won’t be designing any new proper cars from 2019 but will still continue selling the existing range at that point. They have no shareholders to object to committing commercial suicide but that does look like a convenient get out if the demand for alternative vehicles remains so low and with EVs virtually non-existent.

My understanding of the Volvo announcement – and I’ve recycled my ‘Daily Telegraphs’ so can’t check my recollection of their report – is that every ‘range’ that Volvo will offer will include an electric or hybrid option.
The BBC – to my astonishment – had a slightly different take: –
“Carmaker Volvo has said all new models will have an electric motor from 2019.
The Chinese-owned firm, best known for its emphasis on driver safety, has become the first traditional carmaker to signal the end of the internal combustion engine.
It plans to launch five fully electric models between 2019 and 2021 and a range of hybrid models.
But it will still be manufacturing earlier models that have pure combustion engines.”
Source –http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-40505671 – at about 2037Z, 09 July 2017.
I interpret the Telegraph article to mean that, in 2020, if you want a new petrol Volvo [and have the not inconsiderable money needed to get a new car from the Swedes – although rather Chinese by ownership], you can have one.
You will also be able to have a hybrid/electric (possibly both in some ranges).
Driver safety I like. Trouble is, drivers themselves are not always safe . . . . . . .
Diesel, I assume, will be down with the dead men by then. [Interesting mistype originally – ‘diresel’]
Looking at new cars recently, some have no petrol option.
Any powertrain you like, as long as it emits particulates.
[Sorry – Henry Ford – I know I have mangled one of your quotes.
‘history is bunk’ was the other. Hmmm.]
Auto – glad I have a bus [Diresel it is] up my hill!

How is the Military establishment going to meet these targets?
Solar-powered fighter-jets, helicopters & transport-planes?
Ditto, tanks?
Wind-powered naval-vessels (come back, Nelson… you were way-ahead of your time!)

One thing the French are *very* good at (alongside cooking) is rioting in the streets.
Tell your average Frog that he can only drive 300 km. between 30-minute re-charges on his way to “nos vacances” and the cobble-stones will be flying!b And that’s if there’s no line-up at the EV Charger!
Since Frogs drive at about 150 kph as a matter-of-course, that’ll mean 25% less ‘vacances’ en-route!
As an aside, what does an EV driver do when his batteries die-out half-way down an Autoroute?
In good ‘ol days past, one reached for the small emergency gas-can in the trunk.
How about a heavy bin load of AA batteries to get you moving again?

By 2040 it’s possible that Ammonia Fuel will be practical. It’s picking up steam.

The American Chemical Society (ACS) has published the program for its 2017 National Meeting, which takes place next month in Washington DC and includes a session dedicated to the “Ammonia Economy.” link

If ammonia pans out, it may well make renewable energy viable. On the other hand, I think it’s just as likely that our political masters will be begging us to put more CO2 into the atmosphere to promote global greening by 2040.

Indeed. Crude oil is messy but for the most part chemically inert. Ammonia compounds, on the other hand, are highly reactive. It’s a noxious gas in its own right and only gets worse when it pairs up with other elements. Ammonium chloride is essentially a DIY chemical weapon. (If you clean your toilets with bleach, don’t forget to flush before your next leak. Urine contains ammonia. Bleach contains chlorine.)

2019 is only one year and half away. It is going to be sad to see Volvo imploding from their own stupidity.
The hybrid version of the V60 is 30% more expensive that the fuel version and the new vehicles market share for hybrid or electric cars is less than 5%. This isn’t going to change in 18 months. Where are they going to get their customers? Volvo has like 1% of the world car market at best. How much of the hybrid and electric car market do they have to capture to survive?

I own a 2013 Volvo SUV model XC60 T6. 325 HP
Just superb, love driving it and maintenance is terrific service at the dealer.
The dealer also sends me email offers to exchange it for a 2017 model. I would have a good deal!
No way. And they can keep their hybrid etc in the coming years.

The 1% of the market Volvo owns overlaps perfectly with the 5% that buy hybrids. They only need to convert one in five. Volvo carved out its 1% in the first place by convincing people that they were such bad drivers that they were certain to be involved in violent, serious accidents. Yup, same people, new message.
Also, they left themselves a huge out – technically, I could convert any car to a hybrid by putting a laptop battery in the glove box, charged off the cigarette lighter, running a coffee grinder motor coupled to the drive train through the speedometer takeoff. The hybrid part does not actually have to do anything useful and can be really cheap.
Remember in the 1950s when car makers sold the public on tail fins? Some of my parent’s dimmer friends told me with great authority that it made the car feel more stable on the road. Even then, I was a skeptic.

It is interesting to hear they plan to ban ‘combustion powered’ vehicles. Did I get that correct? So…what happened to the hydrogen economy? Burning hydrogen involves combustion, at least it used to.
What about alcohol cells that generate electricity. They involve reacting it with oxygen, generating heat in the process.
Hydrogen fuel cells that took men to the moon – gonna be banned, I guess. Combustion involves combusting a fuel by oxidation in most practical circumstances. It doesn’t sound well thought through.
It is like banning ‘electricity’ and then wondering why your brain stopped working.

If the problem is urgent why wait until 2040? It’s no good banning petrol-driven cars if you still get the power for electricity from fossil fuels; so why did France just sign a $5 billion, 20-year-deal to buy natural gas from Iran? How many disgusting, dirty batteries will be required to power all the electric vehicles?

Time to buy stock in Ford (F) and General Moters (GM). They pay decent dividends too!
Macron may be forced out before 2022, possibly 2019 as rolling black-outs roil the French populous and abandoned “electric” cars litters the streets of Paris and country roads reminiscent of horse manure everywhere during the Great Horse Manure Crisis 1894.

Will they still have mopeds in France? It is impressive to see all of the two-cycle mopeds that are everywhere. Not to mention the outlaw looking gangs of leather clad young men zooming around on their stripped down mopeds with only one pedal. (So they can start the things going.) The mopeds have to contribute more to pollution than cars.

We should switch to electrical mopeds too, like the way they have done in most chinese cities.
See pictures from the streets in Guilin which I recorded last week, you hear no noise from the mopeds because they are all electric.https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pInKD-5JF-4
/Jan

“This situation is clearly the result of a political choice: the emergence of the diesel has been supported for many years by tax devices of importance (a tax advantage over gasoline, repayments of VAT etc.). ”
… in the never ending trail of green disasters led by EU dictat and dodgy science, much of it from Potsdam under the auspices of the political scientist in chief, Herr Flügelhorn. Who invented filthy diesel in the first place? Who didn’t see what was bound to happen if you concentrate the particulate and NOx emmissions in urban environments by running cars on the stuff? Shell and hubris? Bugger all to do with CO2 old son.

Great. Somebody has to go first. Let France show the way.
Letting politicians makes these sort of decisions is, by any criterion, simply mad. Just mad. If you didn’t think Climate Change was a religion, this is all the proof you need to change your mind.
But, hey, they voted for it, so go for it.
Hey! Doesn’t France have something called Parliament? Don’t it have some sort of say in this matter? Or, does this guy rule by decree?

” Let France show the way. ” Now hold on … I thought California was going to show us the way?
This could end up being an old fashioned contest to see which one is first to completely destroys its own economy. Of course no matter which one “wins”, each will receive an attractive looking participation prize.

None of the state parliaments in EU have power.
The reason we have this idiot macron is because all our politicians are idiots. No matter who we elect they will be an idiot. Much like the EU.
Brits who want to stay in the eu completely puzzle me. There is not one politician in Europe with a grey cell between their ears.

Even leaving out the EU, the parliamentary electoral system all but ensures that even super-minority single-issue parties get a handful of seats, where they can exercise disproportionate influence. By offering their votes to the plurality party in exchange for getting their agendas pushed, ie. playing kingmaker (or in this case, governing majority-maker).

Why do they keep mentioning Volvo? Volvo is wholly owned by the Chinese now, and have been for some time, because they couldn’t out luxury the Germans.
If the Chinese really think they can build golf carts with a Volvo marque on the hood, let them try. But it cracks me up that the implication of the Volvo news is that somehow the Swedes have become electron masters and are going to lead the way in electrification.
No such thing has happened.

An excellent reason to Brexit. Otherwise we will have an EU dictat on the same lines and all our politicians will go belly up.
Meanwhile: What do I do with all those duff rechargeable batteries I have sculling around in a drawer?
Politics is like a football: Balance on the top and all is well. Move either too far to the Right or the Left and you are in deep trouble.

To cover 600 miles without stopping to charge, the truck would need a 14 ton battery. A 900-mile battery would weigh about 22 tons. Based on current prices, those packs would cost between $290,000 and $450,000. A comparable diesel rig costs about $120,000, all-in.

Given that the average “big rig” tractor gets 4-5 mpg, that’s the equivalent of 4 Mwh of electricity to drive that 600 miles. France can build small arrays of solar panels for the recharging of the 12 ton battery…3,000 panels @ 100 watts ought to do it. And to think that 1/2 the payload will now be required just to haul the battery; you’ve just DOUBLED THE NUMBER OF TRACTORS required to pull same amount of cargo as a diesel-powered tractor. Progress? I think not.

So, France plans to ban all petrol and diesel vehicles by 2040… the best French minds also planned and built the Maginot Line… even seemed like a good idea at the time, but it didn’t provide the intended result. I suspect the ban of petrol & diesel vehicles will also not provide the intended result.

Why can’t loony Leftists appreciate the lessons of history and realize governments SUCK at picking winners and losers…
Just let free markets decide on what, where and when new technologies make sense to adopt rather than making multi-trillion dollar mistakes and misallocations of land, labor and capital by letting pathetic and feckless political hacks pick and choose and subsidize technologies that most likely are not ready for prime-time…
Loony Leftists claim their decisions are based on “SCIENCE! (TM)” and “experts”, when in reality they’re based on the failed and immoral philosophies of coercion and the initiation of force against its citizens backed by a barrel of a gun…
Pathetic..

You seem to say that there’s no middle ground between the Free market and the Freedom of extreme exploitation of people & environment.
Shouldn’t there be a rule book and an umpire for a level playing field? Who should do that?
Isn’t the question in every situation about correcting the unintended consequences of every brilliant solution? The negotiations are mostly done behind the scenes by lobbyists for free marketeers and entrenched bureaucrats, all with hidden agendae.

“An umpire is supposed to be a disinterested party to dispassionately enforce the rule book.
“Governments are far from dispassionate and VERY far from disinterested.”
Absolutely correct. But neither are corporations. Self-interest at work everywhere.
Again the question:
how to compromise between the self-interested lobbying of the Free market, and self-interested, empire-building Politicians & Bureaucrats?
It’s even worse when they gang up on us:
“Beware the Military-Industrial Complex.”
~Dwight Eisenhower, upon leaving office.

That must also include aircraft and shipping. I do not know of any aircraft that does not make use of fossil fuel so all air travel to, from, and over France will be haulted. Most shipping by sea also depends upon fossil fuels so the French will only allow sailing ships and row boats to enter and operate in their waters. It all sounds great but it will have no effect on climate.

The technology will make it possible to advance much further in the sobriety of thermal vehicles and the reduction of polluting emissions (CO2 is NOT a pollutant, so no matter the volume of CO2 emissions). It is not known what will be the performance of the thermal engines in 2040, and no one can prejudge. But Mr. Hulot does not care, he wants to remove the thermal, whatever the cost for our industry and for households, because green ideology takes precedence over reason …

France has several problems around its generation. We are currently building new nuclear (1, I think) otherwise the whole fleet is aging rapidly. By 2025 we will be forced to shut at least 10 stations just through age alone. With high taxes and high government spending we do not have the funds to build more new nuclear.
The filthy greens are embedded in the government system by Nature 2000 and the whole of western Europe is caught up in the green madness.
I think we will go the way of Australia and California.
Lastly, if, as all economists are saying, the EEU collapses then none of this will matter.

Does this include the ships and aircraft that go in and out of France???
Does this include the trucks that carry goods around and through the country???
Does this include those vehicles that are essential to farming???
Just a few questions.

It won’t happen. Macron will be gone in five years – once the French public at large get wind of his master plan, he’ll be history. A lot of fuel will also be wasted torching vehicles in the banlieues.

France has started a scheme, currently mandatory is certain areas, of categorizing and controlling access to cities by ICE powered vehicles. This is called CritAir Air Quality Certificate.https://www.certificat-air.gouv.fr/en/
Although only partially mandatory I would imagine that bored gendarmes stopping foreign vehicles will take delight in applying fixed penalty fines on the basis that tourist like going into major cities.

Although only partially mandatory I would imagine that bored gendarmes stopping foreign vehicles will take delight in applying fixed penalty fines on the basis that tourist like going into major cities.

Strasbourg perhaps being one of those. Many EU parliamentarians already proclaim their preference having the plenary sessions in Belgium or Luxembourg instead of Strasbourg – to a point some pick a hotel in Germany during the session week and cross the border daily by car. This might well be the last straw for them too.

A bit of publicity following the first few stops, and many tourists will change to –
” the basis that tourist like going into major cities outside France”.
France gets a huge number of tourists.
Many spend quite heavily – especially since French prices inflated, not-so-gently, after the Euro.
A significant reduction – not unlikely – would harm French profits, employment, and – of course – tax collection.
But no doubt the Holidaying Hulot has a plan . . . . . .
May I recommend this cunning plan –https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AsXKS8Nyu8Q
Auto
Enjoy

If nothing changes by 2040 we will live in a biometric controlled cashless hell house. Much worse than ‘1984’ . Puppet politicians will have become a thing of the past. We can only pray for another Carrington event.

Or via Austria and Germany, the Netherlands, then Belgium, for the Italians.
The Spanish have a slightly longer option –
Ferry to Morocco, Algeria, (carry enough water), Tunisia, Libya (carry enough AK47s), , Egypt, Israel, ferry to Cyprus; ferry to Italy; then as above.
Will really boost their CO2 emissions and car servicing needs, but possibly not their acceptance in the UK, going via many N. African states.
Possibly not.
Auto

Greenie “Leaders” are doubling down on stupid now, wallowing in and trying to out virtue-signal one another, in a frantic attempt to try to shame Trump, and the US. It’s both hilarious and sad. Charles de Gaulle must be rolling in his grave about now.

I’m sure it’s been said above but I drive to SW France and back twice a year or more and see these vast ten wheel articks coming up from Spain on their way to Paris and elsewhere full of Spanish goodies – hundreds of them! How do you battery-power an artick? The diesel engine is quite safe, never fear.

I laughed so hard when I read this article. The release is typical of the elitist twits that have run the French economy into the ground and ate now desperate to be bailed out by Germany. I would love to see France ban German built diesel or petrol cars while holding their hands for German cash. The country is a joke run by jokes like Macron who sleazed his way through the G20 leaders so as to end up standing alongside President Trump for the photo shoot. The French would not even have a car industry of note if it was not being propped up by the French government.

Has anyone addressed how many millions of man hours will be spent/wasted waiting for the e-vehicles to recharge? How far will a semi rig hauling 80,000 GVW travel running on batteries? Pulling its load in the Alps or Pyrenees? Is a plane a vehicle? A boat or ship? How about military trucks, tanks, artillery haulers, Bradleys, etc? (“Sorry Sarge. We need to stop the battle for 7 hours while we recharge our tanks.”)

Steve,
Yes – if they have wheels.
The Seine is quite deep for a way – I took a 30 foot draft tanker up a bit in 1973 – Tancarville???. Should check [verify – not pay out]
Mind, excessive CAGW rainfall, so erosion, so silting, will have changed it utterly since then.
Mods – Sarc].
But wheels, and demountable conning towers [‘sails’], are necessary expenses.
Auto

MarkW
In a way earlier post, you ask about the difference between socialism and fascism.
The way I’ve looked at its that: Communism is international socialism. Fascism is national socialism.
There is a good description of all the “isms”. In an authoritarian system “That which is not prohibited, is compulsory.”

Petit Couronne – Rouen, more or less. Sorry.
Wheels for sure. Also a fo9lding conning tower.
Also a ‘Harry Potter ‘Shrinking Potion’ I think.
I did a river cruise from Nantes, up the Loire, and the ship had a loaded draft of 80 centimetres – about 2 feet eight inches. Don’t think the Seine is so restricted.
But wheels Will be need34ed. No matter how good a price you are getting . . . . . . . . .
Auto

The further into the future implementation of such plans are, the more grandiose they tend to be. All sorts of things can happen during the next 23 years; one of them could be that the various nations realize that achieving the current climate goals will be increasingly remote. Another could be a consumer backlash against higher prices brought on by Green demands. A third could be a change of government to one that’s not so friendly toward climate change initiatives. A fourth could be some new technology that’s superior to electric vehicles, etc. Incidentally, does France also plan to ban heavy trucks and equipment, railway locomotives, ships and jet aircraft and replace them with batteries?

The guy is 39 years old and married to his high school teacher. Does anybody take him seriously?
Wikipedia;
Macron studied philosophy at Paris Nanterre University, completed a Master’s of Public Affairs at Sciences Po, and graduated from the École nationale d’administration (ENA) in 2004. He worked as an Inspector of Finances in the Inspectorate General of Finances (IGF), then became an investment banker at Rothschild & Cie Banque.[1]
Tell me this is some kind of a put on.

I love the fact that a record of where I was picked up and where I was dropped off will be recorded for any one to access (with the proper legal documents of course). Government, suspicious spouse, etc…

… won’t allow the sale of gas/diesel vehicles …
There will obviously be an exception for vehicles that need to be reliable under all situations. Emergency vehicles, tow trucks, etc..
Isn’t it the French farmers that spray fertilizer (cow crap) all over the place when they irritated with government policy … there will be exceptions for farm vehicles.
When electric vehicle technology is reliable & good enough for the fire trucks it will be good enough for me.

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